


Rumble and Frenzy and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Decision-Making Skills

by Aesoleucian



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2189385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoleucian/pseuds/Aesoleucian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A completely pointless snapshot of a day in the life, in case you were wondering what stupid things the wonder twins get up to. And yes, losers making trouble because they're bored is now my MO. You got me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Slag, not so hard.” _Clank._ “Ow! What did I just say!”

“If you think you can do a better job, go ahead.”

“I’d love to but, funny story, my left arm won’t move.”

“And I s’pose that’s my fault?”

“If you’d just tripped Ramjet like you were supposed to he wouldn’t have fragged it up!”

Frenzy stood and threw the hammer onto the floor. “Well sor- _ree_ ,” he said, a pout settling onto his face. “Maybe you should have listened to me and not told him to go smelt himself with rocket exhaust, and then he wouldn’t have _wanted to rip your arm off_.”

Rumble leaned forward awkwardly to take the hammer with his right hand. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Now will you please help me fix my arm before Soundwave gets back? Pounding out dents isn’t that important. We can just say we were wrestling, or we fell down an elevator shaft or something.”

“I’m not a slaggin’ medic,” Frenzy said, but he knelt by Rumble again and peered into his twin’s shoulder joint. “Huh. Looks like some of the bearings came loose. Maybe I can—”

They both froze as they registered the footsteps growing louder outside the door. Rumble turned to Frenzy with a bright, panicked visor. “We need a story!”

“Elevator shaft,” said Frenzy, vindictively. “Sure he’ll buy that for the twentieth time this megacycle.”

“Frenzy!” moaned Rumble. In any case, it was too late. The door opened with a whirr, and Soundwave walked in with Laserbeak perched on his shoulder. Rumble must have been pulling the least casual face in Cybertronian history, because Soundwave immediately came to stand above them.

“Hey, boss,” Rumble said. “How was your day?”

“Rumble: injured?”

“Nah, it’s just a scratch. Couple of scratches. It’s a hard knock life for us Decepticons.” Frenzy suppressed a snicker, imagining Rumble as a human child singing about menial labor. Soundwave wouldn’t get it—he’d probably never watched a single Earth film in all the time they’d been here.

Nevertheless, he crouched beside Rumble, performed a quick external diagnostic, and made a small humming noise. “Bad liar. Who did this?”

“I fell down an elevator shaft again,” he mumbled, and Frenzy almost had to stuff a fist into his mouth to muffle his laughter. “I really need to stop hanging out in those.” Soundwave just stared at Rumble until the latter started fidgeting with his good hand, and finally burst out, “Okay! I picked a fight. It was stupid and I won’t do it again.”

“We all know that’s a lie,” added Frenzy.

Rumble turned on him. “Like you’re any better! Whose fault was it Astrotrain dumped us in a lake from low orbit?”

“At least I didn’t do it on purpose!” Frenzy shot back. “It’s not like I knew—”

“That pestering him to take us to the moon for an _entire joor_ would make him cranky? _Really_.”

“Quiet,” said Soundwave. They looked up at him. “How often does this happen?”

“Not more than once every couple of. Uh.” Rumble shot a panicked look at Frenzy, trying to decide whether he should lie.

“Orns,” Frenzy finished. “Usually less often.”

Soundwave scooped up Rumble and stood. As Rumble started to squirm, saying, “Boss! My legs are fine!” Laserbeak took off and migrated to Frenzy’s head with a quiet warble.

“You and me both,” he said.

—

It was kind of weird how they didn’t hear anything more about it after Rumble returned from Hook’s tender care and Soundwave told them simply, “It will not happen again.” They were both expecting some kind of punishment, or maybe what passed for a lecture in the Soundwave household. Instead: nothing. Soundwave just went about his business surveilling the Autobots, and the twins did what they called training for battle (mostly shooting contests and spontaneous wrestling matches).

After a couple of orns, they completely forgot about it. So when Skywarp bumped into Frenzy at the shooting range—probably on purpose—he shouted, “Watch it!” up at the jet. Who looked down and very deliberately kicked Frenzy out of his way.

Frenzy rolled to his feet already glaring, and Rumble stepped up beside him. “You wanna start something?” said Rumble. His body language made it very clear that _he_ wanted to start something.

“Wouldn’t turn out good for you,” said Skywarp, turning away. “You couldn’t win a fight against a motorcycle.”

“That’s it!” shouted Rumble, and sprang at Skywarp’s wings. “You’re going all the way down!” Frenzy dove for Skywarp’s feet, and he fell backward with a crash. Immediately Rumble scrambled up onto Skywarp’s chest and started pummeling his face. One huge arm jerked up, and Rumble flew into the wall with a cry of pain.

“Nobody does that to _my_ brother!” Frenzy pulled out his gun and started attacking the thrusters on Skywarp’s legs.

Skywarp kicked him away and jumped to his feet, looking murderous. “This was kind of cute for a couple seconds, but you’re really starting to get on my nerves.” He stalked over to Rumble, who was still trying to get up, and grabbed him by the front of his helm with one massive hand, completely smothering Rumble’s face. Frenzy tried to scoot away on the floor, but Skywarp quickly seized him too.

Suddenly, they were somewhere else. Frenzy couldn’t see, but the temperature had dropped slightly, and Skywarp’s thrusters came online with a roar. “Maybe this will teach you something,” said Skywarp, and dove.

Frenzy’s vision returned, a confusion of blinding sunlight and tree branches, seconds before he hit the ground with a horrible crunch. And an overwhelming wave of pain. His systems decided he’d better conserve energy, and he blacked out.

—

He came online to a chorus of alerts, which he promptly shut off. He already knew he was knee deep in the smelting pool, and they would only distract him. Now he was staring into darkness that meant his face was pushed into the ground.

“Rumble?” he asked, static filling the cracks in his voice. “Hey, Rumble, are you online?” When there was no answer, he tried to sit up, but only managed to roll onto his side. Rumble was next to him, buried down to his chest in dirt and weird needle-shaped dead leaves. “Kick or something if you can hear me.”

Rumble kicked one leg toward Frenzy’s head, clearly trying to hit him. That was a good sign. His CPU wasn’t so damaged that he was incapable of pettiness. “Look,” said Frenzy, “I can’t really move. I’m not sure why ‘cause I can’t be bothered to sort through all my diagnostics.” He glanced toward his lower body anyway for a first approximation—“…oh. Never mind. It’s ‘cause my legs got crushed into scrap.” Rumble’s legs stiffened, and then sagged until one of them made contact with the ground, at which point he started trying to lever himself out of the hole.

Frenzy watched Rumble trying to free himself for a couple of minutes, and then said, “This sucks tailpipe.” Rumble tried to kick him again, and fell over sideways.

“Hah!” he said, shaking his head to get dirt out of the crevices. “You being a giant heap of slag was just what I needed to motivate me.”

“I’d like to point out it was still _kind of_ you who started the fight,” said Frenzy. “Can you help me sit up?”

“Wow, you weren’t kidding about your legs. You look like a Dinobot stepped on you.”

“Yeah, thanks. That’s real nice.”

Rumble finished propping him against the trunk of a tree. “Do you have any idea where we are? My GPS musta got knocked out when I landed head first.”

“Just when I thought your face couldn’t get any uglier,” said Frenzy, smirking at Rumble’s dented helm and crushed left optic. “All right, all right, I’m checking! Uh, looks like we’re… oh. Slag.”

“What!”

“Oregon. Cascade Mountain Range.”

“Don’t tell me…” Rumble slumped next to him.

“Mount Saint Hilary,” said Frenzy grimly.

“What was Warp thinking?” shouted Rumble. “He seriously meant to cripple us right next to Autobase Earth?”

“Rumble, shut _up_ ,” mumbled Frenzy. “We’re right next to Autobase Earth? So maybe you should try _not_ to attract attention?”

Rumble clamped a hand over his mouth, and then winced as a strip of facial plating tore a little further away from his cheek. “Slag,” he whispered. “Sorry. We need to get out of here, is your comm still working?”

Frenzy pinged the _Victory_ experimentally, and got a return ping. “Yes!” He quickly extended a cable from his wrist and manually patched Rumble in. “Soundwave, do you read me?”

“Reading Frenzy. Reason for current location?”

“Ummmmmmmm.”

“It’s Skywarp’s fault,” said Rumble, which was at least partly true. “He’s crazy! He teleported us here and crashed us!”

“Unlikely that this is the full story. But later. Status?”

“My legs are shot,” said Frenzy. “Or, more like scrapped. Point is they’re not actually attached to me right now, and I don’t really want ‘em to be.”

“My sensors and comm equipment are all down,” added Rumble. “Good thing I got Frenzy, huh?” Steely silence greeted this news, and he continued nervously, “Uh, my helm is mostly okay, though. So that’s good.”

“Remain stationary. Reinforcements soon.”

“Like I could go anywhere if I wanted to,” muttered Frenzy.

“Sh!” said Rumble. When Frenzy turned to look at his face, he saw that his brother was staring bright-visored into the trees to the north. “I think I hear something.”

It was definitely not an Earth animal—too loud, and there were occasional clanking noises against rocks and tree trunks. “Now would be a great time to initiate radio silence,” sent Frenzy quickly, and put his comm in standby so he would only receive transmissions tagged as ‘emergency.’

“Rumble,” he said, as quietly as possible. “There’s no way you can get me to cover, is there?” Rumble shook his head mutely, looking even more scared. “Then _hide_!”

“I’m not gonna—”

“If we both get captured it won’t do the Decepticons any good,” snapped Frenzy.

“If it were me you’d stay to defend me.”

“If it were you, you’d think I was being just as stupid as I think you’re being right now!” Hysteria had edged into his voice, and he realized that he was talking way too loudly.

“I’m not leaving!”

“Like the Pit you’re not!”

“I can’t even contact base without you,” snarled Rumble. “What good would I even be?”

“Soundwave knows your location.” Frenzy glanced north again. The noises had stopped, and he could see white paint in the twilight. “Please, this is your last chance.”

“We stick together,” said Rumble, and moved to stand in front of Frenzy, as if he had any hope of defending his brother from what sounded like two full-sized Autobots.

“You’re such a fragging gearhead!”

“Takes one to know one.”

Finally the Autobots appeared out of the trees—Trailbreaker and maybe Prowl or Bluestreak.

“Hey, ‘Cons! You’re pretty far from home, aren’t you? Don’t worry, we’ve got a nice cold cell for you on the _Ark_ , if you need somewhere to stay.” Bluestreak. He came forward until Frenzy could see him clearly, and then stopped. “Woah. What happened to you two? Forgot how to fly?”

“We didn’t forget how to use our guns,” said Rumble—and Frenzy could feel him trembling through the ground with his seismic sensors—“so back off!”

“Guess you also forgot who this guy is, huh? C’mon, Trailbreaker, do your thing!”

“He’s not even trying to shoot us,” said Trailbreaker with a shrug. “From the way he landed, I’m guessing his weapons systems are offline.”

“You’re no fun,” said Bluestreak, as Frenzy hissed, “You didn’t tell me that!”

“I haven’t worked out moveable forcefields, anyway. Let’s just take ‘em back.”

Rumble looked back at Frenzy with an apologetic grimace, which was ruined by the complete wreckage of his face. “It was worth a try.”

“You slag-sucking piston-brained—”

“I just wanna look out for you, awright?”

Frenzy sighed, defeated by his brother _and_ by two stupid Autobots. His guns actually were working, but at this point if he tried to use them he’d only get Rumble hurt. So he allowed Bluestreak to pick him up, carry him back to the _Ark_ , and dump him in a “cell” a couple levels underground. It was really more like a storage room, but it wasn’t like it mattered to him.

They cuffed his hands, and put Rumble in stasis cuffs against the opposite wall. Rumble stared at him for so long that he eventually gave in and dragged himself over to sit by his brother.

“You could be with Soundwave right now,” said Frenzy.

“Cut it out, you moron.”

“It wouldn’t even be for that long. I bet they’re planning a rescue right now.”

“Seriously, just shut up.”

“That’s rich, coming from you. You’ve never been quiet an orn in your life!”

“If I go insane before Soundwave gets here, it’s completely your fault.”

That’d teach Frenzy to try and cheer his brother up. He shut his mouth and slumped against Rumble’s side, and both of them fell into standby to let repair systems do their work. When Frenzy came online again, his internal chronometer told him it had been several joors. Rumble was still unconscious, or pretending to be, and Frenzy couldn’t get back into standby, so he stared around the storage room. Unmarked boxes made of cheap scrap metal, and dim overhead lights that kept flickering. It was actually even more depressing than a real prison cell.

He glanced over at Rumble, and was glad to see repair systems going to work on the torn edges of his facial plating. Soon he’d at least look normal on the outside again. The same couldn’t be said for Frenzy. Once his pelvic armor was fixed, he’d still look like a Dinobot had stepped on him. Just a more precise Dinobot.

His comm was being jammed.

He was going to _scream_ from boredom.

He started reorganizing his files on human sitcoms based on the combined heights of the protagonists. It only took about a quarter joor so he cross-referenced them all by setting, using both the English and Neocybex alphabets.

Rumble came online abruptly, and shouted “Huh?”

“Autobase Earth,” said Frenzy. “Stasis cuffs.”

“Primus fragging… Ugh. How long have we been here?”

“Nowhere near long enough to explain how _bored_ I am. It’s like the Autobots put some kind of _time dilation_ tech on us as a new form of torture.”

“Wouldn’t put it past them,” muttered Rumble. After a moment, “Don’t they feed their prisoners? I’m starving.”

“Hey!” Frenzy shouted at the camera in the corner of the ceiling. “We’re working hard on self-repair over here! Can we get some energon?”

A little while later the door opened and the Autobot medic came in with two cubes. He stood in the doorway and looked down at them, frowning slightly.

“If you wanna take off these cuffs you won’t have to feed Rumble,” said Frenzy. “S’not like I’m going anywhere.”

Ratchet ignored him. “I want to take system diagnostics for our records.”

“Feed me and I’ll do _anything_ ,” said Rumble.

Frenzy dug his elbow sharply into Rumble’s side. “Try not to give out too many important secrets, all _right_?”

“It’s an advanced technique called ‘lying to get what you want.’” Ratchet raised one optic ridge, so Rumble hastily added, “Exaggerating, more like. Letting an Autobot take system diagnostics is definitely a thing I’d do for energon.”

Ratchet insisted on leaving Frenzy in his cuffs anyway, and fed them while he was plugged in. He didn’t say anything else until he left, taking the empty cubes with him. Now they were alone again, in the most boring place on this awful planet.

“This sucks tailpiiiiiipe.”

“Don’t be a whiner, Rumble.”

“I was quoting you,” said Rumble sourly.

“I’m going offline,” said Frenzy. “Wake me up if someone comes to rescue us.”

—

Frenzy came online first again. Somewhere above them were the faint sounds of battle. He elbowed Rumble a little too enthusiastically, causing him to fall over onto his side.

“Ughh. Thanks a lot, Frenzy. Thanks for the favor.”

“Whatever! They’re here! They’re probably coming to get us right now!”

And, yes, a quarter joor later, the door slid open and Ravage padded in. She growled, eyes narrowing in amusement at their awkward state.

“Laugh it up, rustbutt. Just get us out of these, will ya?”

Ravage’s claws weren’t really made for things like deprogramming stasis cuffs, but after a few tense minutes she managed it. As she went to work on Frenzy, Rumble jumped up to stretch dramatically. “Free! Free at last!”

"Hi, I could use a hand here,” said Frenzy sourly from the floor. “Mind carrying me?”

“I don’t mind much right now. Feels good to walk around again. Oops… sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s just get _out_ of here.”

Ravage turned out to have gotten in through the ventilation system, which wasn’t fun to navigate for someone trying to carry a legless bot, _or_ the bot who was being carried. He lost count of the number of times Rumble bumped his helm against the sides of the duct, because he preferred to think about other things instead. Mostly those other things ended up being ‘getting caught by the Autobots’ or ‘Soundwave getting damaged in the battle,’ but at least relentless pessimism passed the time.

As soon as they hit fresh air and sunlight, Ravage commed Soundwave to withdraw and meet at their location. Within a few minutes the sounds of battle stopped. Soundwave appeared over the slope of the volcano, touched down almost on top of Frenzy, and picked him up. Concern was radiating off him, as palpable as IR from low stellar orbit. His hands went gently all over Frenzy, checking for serious injuries and lingering on the crushed wires that used to lead to his legs.

“What am I, organic sewage?” asked Rumble from where he was leaning, exhausted, on Ravage’s shoulder. Soundwave adjusted Frenzy in the crook of his arm and allowed Rumble to climb into his hand. Frenzy relaxed completely for the first time all orn, watching his brother settle against Soundwave’s chest. It hadn’t been too bad after all, had it?

They flew back to base and spent a horribly long time in medbay with Hook grumbling over them. Starscream came in to laugh at them, but Skywarp didn’t make an appearance—Rumble and Frenzy spent their time speculating about what Soundwave had done to him. Their guesses got more and more outrageous until, by the time they were released, the favorite theory was that Skywarp was in six pieces scattered around nearby planets.

Frenzy asked Soundwave if this was true when they got home, but he only said, “You were told to cease antagonizing the Seekers.”

“Not in so many words?” said Rumble hopefully.

“You will be detained for three megacycles.” He waited for the protests to die down, and then opened his chest compartment. “In.” Rumble transformed, whining the whole time. Frenzy followed him, wincing as his new legs scraped uncomfortably.

Once inside Soundwave, they were surrounded by a pronounced feeling of satisfaction. Part of that was because his cassettes were all safe again, but Frenzy made a note to find out for certain what had happened to Skywarp.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumble and Frenzy up to no good again, because when aren't they. This time they dragged Laserbeak into it.

Laserbeak was perched on top of a rock outcropping, with her optics zoomed in on the Autobots below and her audial sensors straining to catch what they were saying. Obviously this was the perfect time to bother her.

“Hey, Laserbutt!” Her head jerked and turned to glare at Frenzy as she refocused her optics. “Can’t you record and talk at the same time? This is soooo boring. Rumble’s playing a game on the human telephone network and he won’t tell me what it is so I can join.”

Rumble sent Frenzy a long string of rude emoticons over their private band, and then pumped his fist as his DM told him the drop from the minotaur he’d just killed. Rumble still hadn’t looked up from the scene below, and since Frenzy and Laserbeak were now glaring at each other while they argued, he was the only one who saw the holomap Hound briefly projected. And _this_ was why Soundwave made three cassettes go to the same stakeout. He set a reminder to tell himself to look at it closer when the campaign was over, because it was probably important.

Later, when he checked, it turned out it was _totally_ important. He waved Frenzy over to link up. “Okay so you know how you airheads were sniping each other instead of doing your job?” Frenzy made a disgusted noise, which Rumble took as a yes. “Well you really should’ve been doing your job, ‘cause look what Hound showed whatserface while you weren’t paying attention!”

“Hey, that must be where the mine is! Looks like you’re actually the competent one for once.”

“Looks like _you’re_ begging to get slagged, you…”

“Couldn’t think of a good insult? I take it back, you’re never ever gonna be the competent one.”

“Frenzy, we’re the only ones who know this. What if we go up there and check out the mine? Like, anticipating orders, right? That’s a thing people say. Instead of making Soundwave tell us to go to Canada, we just do what we know he’s gonna order us to do anyway.”

“Is your brain made of lead?” Frenzy rolled his eyes. “You think he’s not gonna notice?”

“That is what I think. And who’s the leadbrain here? Not me, ‘cause you’re the one who forgot about Soundwave’s upload day.”

Frenzy disconnected and handed the cable back to Rumble. “Is that tomorrow? Slag, it is. In my defense, I pretty much never need to know scrap like that.”

“I didn’t actually remember either, I was just going through my calendar hoping he’d be busy sometime soon. Look, the _point_ is we could totally get there and back before he notices we’re gone. He’s probably not even expecting us in tonight.”

“Okay, you had me at ‘go to Canada.’ Nothing cool ever happens at base, let’s get outta here.”

—

About a half joor later Rumble felt really stupid, because, duh, Soundwave wasn’t the only one who might notice they were taking a 600-mile road trip. He also felt really stupid for not noticing Laserbeak tailing them for an entire half joor. At least Frenzy hadn’t either.

“Okay, I’ll just go ahead and ask. Where in the Pit do you two geargrinders think you’re going?” Nobody did _acid tone_ like Laserbeak.

“It’s kind of a secret,” said Rumble. “You should probably go home and not mention it to anyone.”

“Like slag I will!” She swooped directly in front of them, forcing them to swerve. “You could be traitors meeting up with your Autobot contacts! You could be deserting!”

“How long’ve you known us for, Lase?” said Frenzy, managing to sound injured by the very suggestion.

She just clacked her beak pointedly as she settled into a position above them where she could keep watch.

“Okay, well, while you and Frenzy were wasting time I got a look at a holomap that I think had the location of the mine they were talking about. We thought we’d take a detour on the way home and save Soundwave having to follow a false lead. No big.”

“Oh, of course. It couldn’t _possibly_ be a trap. No need to tell anyone about your _detour_. Great thinking.”

“Here’s an idea, why don’t you go back to base, and if anyone asks where we are you can tell them? Perfect balance of ‘someone knows where we are’ and ‘you’re not in our way.’ So go kick rocks.”

“That’s stupid, and you’re stupid, and your Earth slang is stupid,” snapped Laserbeak. “I’ve become stupider just by hearing you say that.”

They flew in tense silence until another hour had passed, at which point Rumble’s connection started getting extremely spotty and he had to make up a plausible reason to quit his game. He flipped over onto his back and groaned theatrically so everyone would know how much his life sucked.

“Oh, great, are you finally off the phone?” Frenzy drifted over to body-check him, forcing him to do an awkward little swoop and come back upright. “You said you’d play 3D quantum tic tac toe with me _yesterday_.”

“I had a _raid_ , Frenzy, you don’t just ditch a raid. Why didn’t you play with Laserbeak?”

“Are you kidding? Laserbeak is such a sore loser.” Laserbeak made an ominous little chirpy chuckling noise and dove at Frenzy’s head. “Quit it, Lase, I’m just tellin’ the truth! You’re _proud_ to be a sore loser.”

“I’m proud of having standards,” she said, taking off when Frenzy swatted at her. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

“And that’s why I don’t play with Laserbeak unless it’s co-op,” said Frenzy on their private band. “How big do you want the board?”

They made it a challenge to spend all the rest of the journey playing a single game, so it was triple-recursive five-by-five-by-five quantum tic tac toe. Laserbeak pestered them until they gave her the channel because she was actually more easily bored than either of them and wanted listen in.

They arrived near sunset, flying in low and slow through the trees. From a mile away Laserbeak’s sensors had pinged two Autobots, so at last they touched down quietly and walked to the edge of a low cliff to peer down on…. Who was it? Peachcrumble and Trailmix? Rumble liked the obviously wrong names, and sent them to Frenzy and Laserbeak for a laugh.

Peachcrumble had just arrived, which was pretty weird because she couldn’t fly, and Rumble could swear she’d been the one talking to Hound at Autobase. Could mean one of those dumb Autobot jets gave her a lift and was still hanging around for security. When he quickly commed the others, they had both already decided the same thing and wanted to be careful too.

In fact, Rumble was being _too_ careful of Autobots as he walked down the steep hill, with above-ground sensors extended. He forgot to engage his seismic sensors, and when he stepped into what looked like a shallow dip in the ground it turned out to be a fifty-foot-deep airshaft. He fell with a lot of cursing, flailing, and strangled yelps when he remembered that he didn’t want to be heard. Eventually he stuck most of the way down with his leg wedging him against the side at an awkward angle, straining the joint until it ached. He released pressure from his knee with a slow hiss. Now it wouldn’t work, but it also wouldn’t get too damaged.

Above him Frenzy and Laserbeak were pinging worriedly, probably peering down the hole trying to see him. He sent back a short low-frequency data packet: “I’m fine, guys. Just not goin’ anywhere soon,” plus the info from his superficial systems diagnostic. After a moment he also sent a query to Frenzy asking to share his sensor suite.

Frenzy was lying on his front at the edge of the shaft, trying to see past the uneven rocks. It was probably good he couldn’t, since it meant the Autobots wouldn’t be able to either. After a minute he used a weak sonar pulse instead (the slight lag meant he felt Frenzy transmit the pulse and felt the pulse itself at almost the same time, which was weird), and Rumble caught the little confirmation ping that meant he’d shared the info with Laserbeak.

“Hey beakbrain, I’m doing good,” said Rumble. “You won’t get rid of me until you get out of range or put a lot of rock between us. Or block this band, but my favorite sister would never do that, right?”

“Not during a mission, no,” she said, including a little eye-rolling emoticon for Rumble’s benefit. “Besides, I have dealt with far more annoying from you.”

“Don’t let Ravage hear you say she’s not your favorite sister,” Frenzy added with a kind of off-putting glee. Then, “… scrap.” Rumble heard it too, linked into Frenzy’s sensors. Approaching footsteps, almost certainly attracted by Rumble’s noisy fall. He quickly powered down all nonessential systems to minimize broad-spectrum emissions, leaving only his link to Frenzy. Which was now horribly laggy because he had to use such a narrow band. Somehow he always ended up stuck in a hole with his comms offline.

With his own audials and Frenzy’s (his brother and sister had panicked and hid up a tree) creating a weird echo in his sensory processor, he heard, “Is this where it was coming from?”

A sigh. “I’m not a tracker. Your sensors are probably better than mine.”

“Is there even anything over here?”

Frenzy was looking at the backs of Trailmix and Beachcrumble. After a moment he pinged Laserbeak to get to the mine while the Autobots weren’t looking—“And watch for Aerialbots.” Rumble saw Laserbeak swoop low through the trees and into the mine, and then heard her All Clear to Frenzy. A couple of pebbles and a fine shower of dirt clanged off of his plating where he was still wedged into the airshaft. Scrap. Would they hear? The big clumsy bulks were going to collapse the entrance if they kept walking around on it like that. He forced himself to turn his attention back to what Frenzy was doing.

His brother was inside the mine now, too, looking around for terminals. “Hey, Frenz, not to _worry_ you or nothing, but I ain’t getting any less trapped. You could almost say I’m getting _more_ trapped because these Autoboobs are kicking rocks onto my head.”

“We’ll just wait until they go away and. We’ll… _slag_. I have no clue how to get you outta there.”

“We’re surveillance,” said Laserbeak. “Not tactics. We’re going to rust everything up if we don’t call for help.” She was doing a bad job of not sounding extremely pissed off. “ _Tell Ravage_.”

“You’re right,” said Frenzy, turning to glare at her. “Today is the day I had marked on my calendar for getting messily disembowelled.”

“She’ll only be angrier if she finds out you got Rumble killed and didn’t tell anyone.”

“ _I_ got Rumble killed? _I_?? Listen up, you unalloyed spawn of a—”

“SHUT IT!” said Rumble. “I don’t care what it takes, I want OUT of here. I’m not sitting in a hole in the ground while Autobots try and stomp me to death!”

There was a moment of silence during which Frenzy continue walking, turning his back to Laserbeak—who said in her smuggest voice, “I called Ravage.”

“Using long-range signals at an Autobot base. Why didn’t I think of that.”

“Go and acid-etch your brain module. We’re here now, we’ve called Ravage, we might as well find the intel. Evade.”

They wandered around the mine for a third of a joor—who would’ve thought it was so big?—and still hadn’t found any terminals, so they had started taking geologic samples in hope of at least finding out _what_ the Autobots were mining. That was when Ravage called.

“Zero point two joors away,” she growled, and Frenzy and Laserbeak jumped. She didn’t sound happy. Laserbeak’s SOS had included the words “don’t tell Soundwave,” which was universally recognized as a bad sign.

Still, Rumble was relieved. The Autobots were just _sitting_ there at the top of the airshaft, from the sound of it having a leisurely dinner! Didn’t they feel any sense of urgency to finish what they were supposed to be doing at the mine? He had gotten some interesting things recorded, though. A lot of it was Autobot gossip, which was worth way more than it should be on the _Victory_.

“Status.” Ravage had reached the back entrance of the mine.

“These two idiots decided to go on a covert mission without telling anyone, so I came to keep an optic on them. Now Rumble is trapped in an airshaft and we can’t find any good intel.” Rumble hoped Laserbeak was aware of how whiny she sounded. Because she sounded so whiny right now.

“You didn’t think to call me then.”

“Well…”

“Seismic scan for electronics, low power. Find them. Laserbeak, lookout, with me.” She stalked away from Frenzy, and he immediately started scanning. Laserbeak, who would usually perch between Ravage’s shoulders, flew behind her. “Look for weak points,” Ravage said. “Places to cause a cave-in. Distractions.”

By this point Laserbeak was sharing her senses with Rumble too, so he got to listen to their approach through two sets of audial sensors. Within seconds of their stopping, Ravage sent Laserbeak off to find Frenzy, tell him where to shake things up, and hack the terminal he’d finally found. Rumble had to admit, there was definitely a reason why Ravage was in charge. And it was only partially because she was scarier than most of High Command.

He was distracted when he heard a creaking noise from Frenzy’s channel—his brother was pushing tunnel supports over. “This place is totally on a faultline,” he told Rumble. “They just don’t know it yet.” Frenzy transformed his arms, shaking the mine with every step he took away—and as the tunnel started to collapse he booked it toward Ravage’s location.

Through his own audials Rumble heard one of the Autobots stand up. “What was that?” said Trailmix.

“Cave-in, probably. Should we check it out?”

“Yeah. We don’t want anyone getting hurt because we couldn’t tell the mine was unstable. Bolt will take care of things up here.”

“Scrap. That big stupid Aerialbot _is_ here.” The other three turned their attention to Rumble. “I don’t know why we haven’t seen her. She’s, like, _enormous_. She shouldn’t be able to hide.”

The shaft under Rumble began to shake. She twisted around to look through a gap between her arm and torso. Ravage was gouging at the walls of the airshaft, widening it so she would fit up it.

“Aw, Ravage, am I glad to see you!”

Ravage snarled softly, and leapt out of the way as Rumble fell the rest of the way down the shaft. “You’re an idiot. This whole thing is a waste of energon.”

“Maybe not,” said Laserbeak. “I found a terminal, Ravage. There are some schematics here Megatron might find very interesting.”

“Estimated remaining download time?”

“Less than a breem. If you all get out I shouldn’t have any trouble slipping past the Autobots. Rendezvous point?” She sent coordinates, and Ravage confirmed for all of them.

Rumble finished repressurizing his knee and hurried after Ravage toward the back entrance.

—

They got back home just after Soundwave finished his upload. He noticed immediately, of course, and pinged them all to ask why they weren’t in base.

“Got some dirt for you, boss!” said Rumble gleefully. “That’s info to you squares. Uh, I mean, we went on a reconnaissance mission. In Canada.”

“Punishment will be decided by usefulness of information,” said Soundwave. “Come to quarters.”

Rumble couldn’t help but feel a _little_ nervous as they all walked in. He watched Laserbeak transform to upload her data—she had the most, after all—and Frenzy offer a cable to Soundwave. After a moment, Soundwave ejected Laserbeak.

“Actions were foolish and irresponsible, but data gathered is invaluable. No punishment.”

Rumble and Frenzy turned to each other and high-fived so hard that Rumble’s hand stung. “I told you it was a good idea!”

A moment later he was hit from behind and toppled onto the floor under Ravage’s weight. She settled into a compact position on his back and started rumbling contentedly. “No punishment from _Soundwave_ ,” she corrected. “One joor’s detainment.”


End file.
